News media derivatives: Aug. 2

In case you missed it---People are hammering the media for focusing so much on the actual and alleged gaffes of Mitt Romney on his three-country diplomacy trip. All gaffe, no substance, says the critique. Well, espousers of such a point of view need to watch more Wolf Blitzer!

Elsewhere:

*A head-scratcher: NBC’s television ratings are killing. But what of its traffic online? Is that off the charts as well? We simply do not know, according to AdWeek.

The New York Times did report a handful of early numbers on Monday: NBC recorded 7 million streams on Saturday, though no word on the number of unique viewers. It remains puzzling why NBC hasn’t said more (NBCOlympics.com site views, video views, time on site, etc) given how painstakingly the company collects and tracks its data. Even more odd—comScore and Nielsen aren’t reporting any traffic numbers either. Why are the digital media industries leading third party researchers remaining silent?

*More NBC: Ratings are 30 percent higher than the network had “privately predicted”; revenues solid; they might even break even!

Despite social media complaints about NBC’s policy of filling its prime-time with events taped earlier in the day, it hasn’t dissuaded television viewers. There are even indications that it may have helped: 38.7 million people tuned in Tuesday night, when Americans could have easily learned by dinnertime that the country’s women’s gymnastics team won a gold medal that day and swimmer Michael Phelps set a record for career medals earned. On Monday, when the men’s gymnastics team finished without medals, 31.6 million people watched.

*Anonymous commenter is anonymous no more: Idaho judge orders the Spokesman-Review to ID the person who’d made a nasty comment about a Kootenai County politician.

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